first of all, happy (belated) 4th of July to all the American friends reading this issue!
Secondly, this was a busy week in terms of news: a new digital bank raised a sizeable round, investments are going into space startups (cosmic rays!) and a few international partnerships were announced. The market is thriving.
Now, on to the news!
The Money
A new fintech startup codenamed “Progetto Banca Idea” 🇮🇹raised €45M from a syndicate of strategic and financial investors (including 360 Capital Partners, Banca Sella, Gruppo Generali… here the full investor list). The project is led by Roberto Nicastro (former General Manager at Unicredit) and is aimed at developing a specialist digital bank for professionals and small/micro-enterprises.
Progress Tech Fund (a technology-transfer specialist fund) announced on Linkedin a €200K investment in FinApp, a University of Pauda spin-off. The spin-off has developed a technology to monitor the amount of water in large areas by using cosmic rays.
Amazon and Techstars announced the new cohort of the Alexa Next Stage program. Among the selected participants we have Turin-based startup Alba Robot. The company is developing a new type of wheelchair for people with reduced mobility, powered by the latest advancements in robotics, voice, IoT.
If you ever wondered how H1 2020 performed in terms of fundraising in Italy,🇮🇹 look no further than this article on StartupItalia. It provides a good overview of the year so far. Anna Gaudenzi counted €260M invested and 5 exits to date.
MusixMatch [cb], a realtime lyrics & song translations startup, announced a strategic partnership with Spotify. According to the announcement, Spotify agreed to adopt MusixMatch technology to show real-time lyrics of the songs played in the Spotify app. The service should already be available in 26 countries.
Paypal announced a partnership with Esselunga, one of the major supermarket groups in Northern Italy (>150 malls, >23K employees, ~€8Bn revenues). Customers will be able to pay for their online groceries by using Paypal. The announcement once again is proof of the push towards online commerce caused by the pandemic.
Retention is a fundamental metric for many startups, yet it is often overlooked or misunderstood. Not having comparable data is one of the issues. The tweet below (and the related post) provides some useful reference points from the market.
The European Commission, in partnership with Dealroom and Sifted, published a map of European Startups that can be navigated and explored (you need to register). The free tier contains lots of useful information.
The week in Italian startups is a weekly collection of the most interesting news in the Italian startup ecosystem, with a focus on funding rounds, milestones, major partnerships, and innovation news. The weekly email will be in your inbox on Monday morning(-ish).
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This newsletter is supported by the Italian Tech Alliance (https://www.italiantechalliance.com/).
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